This issue includes the announcement of our 2012 Cost Recovery Survey, as well as an article by our guest columnist from Konica Minolta – a piece outlining the growing need in law firms for an electronic document workflow processing solution.
Editorial
Hello, my name is Rob Mattern and I am the President of Mattern & Associates, LLC. Welcome to the Winter / Spring 2012 edition of Mattern Matters.
It’s the “Net Realization,” Stupid!
In honor of the presidential election year, I thought I would do a take-off on the old Bill Clinton line – “It’s the economy, stupid!” – the Clinton campaign’s mantra for the 1992 election. Well, “It’s the net realization, stupid!” is becoming our mantra here at Mattern & Associates. In more and more of our engagements, the role of cost recovery and the individual firm’s strategy in relation to their support services is increasingly becoming “the issue.” The old chargeback model doesn’t work anymore and most firms are at a loss in how to address it. If you would like to discuss how to solve this issue, contact us here at Mattern & Associates.
Some of the “Happenings” at Mattern & Associates:
Mattern Matters Guest Columnist:
Our guest columnist this month is Konica Minolta who wrote a piece outlining the growing need in law firms for an electronic document workflow processing solution. As they point out in their article, the growing need for these types of products is exacerbated by the rise in budgetary constraints in the legal field and the need to do more with less.
The 2012 Cost Recovery Survey is Here!
We are pleased to announce the official launch of the 2012 Cost Recovery Survey. Our team has put a great deal of work into the 2012 Survey, including being responsive to previous participating firms’ thoughtful feedback and drilling down even further with our survey questions to provide the most comprehensive results to date.
Mattern & Associates has been contacting all the firms that have already expressed an interest in participating, but, there is still time. If you have not already contacted us to participate, we encourage you to do so. Participating firms receive an insightful, customized report comparing their firm’s cost recovery practices to industry benchmarks.
To simplify your time spent on the survey this year, we will send you a PDF of the questions in advance so you can research and prepare your answers when it best suits your needs. Also, Mattern & Associates will be holding a number of webinars to address issues, concerns and the benefits to your firm for participating in the 2012 Cost Recovery Survey – so stay tuned. The 2012 survey promises to be the most comprehensive survey to date; we are excited about that and look forward to the results.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) Wrap-up:
As many of you know, we have been using the Net Promoter Score, also know as NPS, to measure customer satisfaction since 2008. Based on the book, The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld, NPS utilizes the single question: “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend Mattern & Associates to a friend or colleague?”
For the year ending 2011, I am proud to say that Mattern & Associates finished the year at 82%, our highest score ever. This is especially gratifying since most companies score in the 10% – 15% range. Thank you.
Until next time,
Rob Mattern
Automation Software Addresses Legal Documentation Challenges
In today’s fast-paced and demanding legal environment, a massive amount of information needs to be processed every day. Whether it’s complying with new document archiving requirements, following corporate-wide security standards, redacting sensitive information from important legal documents, or converting scanned image files to popular Microsoft Office formats – the challenges facing legal documentation processing continue to grow as the volume of electronic data significantly increases.
The need to preserve data for longer periods of time has escalated due to new regulations and legislation. Along with converting scanned documents to digital archive formats, law professionals also need electronic documents with full text search capability for quick keyword searching. Additionally, some law firms are now requiring scanned documents to be sent directly to email for security purposes.
Redaction of confidential material is another main requirement for legal documents. When performed manually, it can involve hiring temporary staff to search through paper documents and block out any confidential material with a marker pen or tape. And, typically, law firms prefer a highlighted copy of redacted documents, which adds more time to the process. For legal professionals who go through volumes of documents at a time, this error-prone process is slow and inefficient. Likewise, applying manual Bates stamps to documents using a handheld device, preprinted label, or an external appliance with software is another labor-intensive and costly process for the legal market.
These rising challenges have coincided with budgetary constraints throughout the legal services market. While still needing to streamline workflows and optimize operational workloads, law firms throughout the country are under pressure to do more with less.
This is where the power of a workflow automation software solution comes in. Streamlining operations through automation eliminates the possibility of errors and improves the effectiveness of an organization’s workflow, producing an overall cost savings. By using software, what used to take three people to do in four days can be accomplished in under an hour — with greater accuracy. Also, information becomes both easier and faster to retrieve and put in a document management system.
Konica Minolta’s newly released Dispatcher Phoenix Legal software application is a prime example of an electronic document workflow processing solution that improves the efficiency of law firms’ operations while decreasing costs and tightening security. With Dispatcher Phoenix Legal, scanned image files are automatically collected from an MFP (and other sources) for quick conversion to Microsoft Office documents and PDF, including PDF Searchable and PDF/A. Sensitive information can be intelligently redacted and/or highlighted. Dispatcher Phoenix Legal also includes a full-featured Advanced Bates Stamping process, which places an unlimited number of Bates stamps anywhere on the page with text annotations. To address security requirements that eliminate all methods of scanning from MFPs except for email, Dispatcher Phoenix Legal offers a unique “email listener” and Email Parser process that automatically captures emails sent from an MFP into the workflow, with their attachments extracted for further processing.
To learn more about how Dispatcher Phoenix can automate your document workflows, please visit Konica Minolta’s Solutions Engineering Center (SEC) website at www.sec.kmbs.us or contact your local Konica Minolta sales representative.
Leap into an iPad2
Mattern & Associates is excited to announce that our inaugural iPad2 for the Holidays referral program was a huge success. In addition to the iPad2’s we already shipped, we send our thanks to those who participated. In more good news, we found the program to be such a hit, we’ve decided to continue it in honor of Leap Year.
To participate, all you have to do is refer Mattern & Associates to one or more of your colleagues at another firm and have that person contact us to set up a call or a meeting to discuss our services. No obligation whatsoever. For your referral, we’ll give you our thanks – and an iPad2. Sound too good to be true? Take a leap of faith.
Here are the details:
- Referral must contact Mattern & Associates by April 30, 2012.
- Conversation or meeting with the referral has to take place before June 30, 2012.
- The referral has to be to a person that has the authority to engage Mattern & Associates.
- Referred firm must be larger than 50 attorneys.
- Referral has never been a client of Mattern & Associates or who has not worked with us in the past three years.
- If you have not worked with us in the past three years, yes, you may refer yourself.
- Did you receive an iPad2 for the holidays? Yes, you too may refer Mattern to a new and different contact and we’ll thank you again with an iPad2.
Every referral that meets these requirements will result in an iPad2. Alternatively, for those so inclined, Mattern & Associates will donate your referral gift of an iPad2 or make an in-kind financial donation to a charity of your choice.
In order to make sure you receive proper and timely credit, please send Rob Mattern the names of the people you are referring to rmattern@matternassoc.com.
